Poroshenko, in Wales for a NATO summit, said on Ukrainian
television he’ll declare a halt to the fighting at 2 p.m. Minsk
time if negotiations begin as planned in the capital of Belarus.
Officials from Russia and the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe are also due to attend. Poroshenko has
ended cease-fires because of rebel attacks.

The self-declared people’s republics of Ukraine’s
easternmost Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where most of the
fighting in the five-month conflict has occurred, released
statements saying they’ll join the cease-fire if the government
in Kiev signs their plan for a political resolution.

“Ukraine has never wanted war, is tired of war and will do
everything possible to bring peace to this land,” Poroshenko
said on TV5.

Fighting continued in the southeast, with Ukrainian
television showing a column of Russian tanks moving toward
Mariupol on the Sea of Azov and skirmishes on the outskirts of
the city. More than 3,000 Russian troops with tanks are already
operating inside Ukraine and the number is growing, Sky News
cited NATO officials as saying today.

Putin Plan

Still, a lasting cease-fire would be the biggest
breakthrough of the war, which has claimed 2,600 lives,
displaced more than 1 million people and led to several rounds
of U.S. and European Union sanctions on Russia.

Poroshenko, who succeeded Donetsk native Viktor Yanukovych
after the Kremlin-backed leader was driven from power amid
protests in February, said he sees clear support from the 28
member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO,
set up in 1949 in part to counter the Soviet Union, accuses
President Vladimir Putin of stoking the separatist rebellion
after Russia annexed Crimea in March.

Putin, who denies Russian involvement in the fighting,
unveiled a seven-point plan yesterday after agreeing with his
Ukrainian counterpart on steps toward a truce. The proposal
includes an end to the rebel offensive and the withdrawal of the
Ukrainian military from residential areas.

Stocks Rally

Russian stocks, battered by the fighting, rallied on the
news, with the Micex Index rising 0.9 percent to 1,457.34 in
Moscow, rebounding from a decline of 0.7 percent.

Poroshenko, 48, said he’s offering legal changes that will
lead to stability in Luhansk and Donetsk, though he didn’t
provide any details of what those are. Putin, 61, won’t settle
for anything less than turning Luhansk and Donetsk into quasi
statelets with the right to veto major national initiatives,
such as Ukraine joining NATO, according to five current and
former Russian officials and advisers.

Putin is willing to wait until November, after Ukraine
elects a new parliament and the heating season starts, to ensure
his goals are met, in part by extending a natural gas cutoff to
force a compromise if needed, one official said on condition of
anonymity after speaking with Putin last week.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Putin’s
plan is just “window dressing” timed to coincide with the NATO
summit and aimed at avoiding further sanctions. Ukrainian forces
have been reeling from a series of reverses sparked by what they
called a “full-scale invasion” by Russia last week.

‘Last Bullet’

Frants Klintsevich, deputy head of the Defense Committee in
Russia’s lower house of parliament, said any peace deal now will
have to include the de facto partitioning of Ukraine.

“The leaders of these republics in Donetsk and Luhansk are
ready to enter negotiations, but they won’t back down,”
Klintsevich said yesterday. “No matter what happens, they’ll
live separately from Kiev. After so much bloodshed, there’s no
other choice. They’ll fight to the last bullet if necessary.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Sept. 1 that
the rebels would continue to gain ground unless Ukraine sued for
peace. The same day, Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper said Putin
told European Commission President Jose Barroso he could take
Kiev in two weeks if he wanted, remarks Kremlin aide Yuri
Ushakov said were taken out of context. Last week, Putin warned
against any “aggression” toward Russia, noting the country
remains “one of the world’s biggest nuclear powers.”

“The West is afraid of a major war and Putin is exploiting
that,” said Stanislav Belkovsky, a Kremlin adviser during
Putin’s first term who now heads the Institute for National
Strategy in Moscow. “The point is to frighten the West and
Ukraine into thinking he’ll take Kiev and change the map of
Europe unless he gets what he wants. He’s bluffing.”